ScioSense Advances Ultrasonic Smart Metering Front-End

Smart metering designs increasingly balance two competing requirements: higher measurement precision at low flow rates and extended battery life in field deployments. In this context, ScioSense has introduced the UFC23, a fourth-generation ultrasonic flow converter for water, heat, and gas metering applications.

A front-end architecture aligned with evolving meter designs
The UFC23 expands the company’s ultrasonic flow portfolio with a front-end-only architecture that removes the on-chip CPU found in earlier flow converters. This reflects a broader design shift in smart metering, where flow calculation is increasingly handled by a central host microcontroller rather than within the sensor subsystem.

For OEMs, this approach preserves control over system architecture, software environment, and processing strategy while retaining access to the analogue measurement front end.

The device is intended for battery-powered smart water meters, heat meters, gas meters, leak detection systems, water heaters, pump control systems, and smart faucets.

Precision at low flow rates with reduced power demand
For metering applications, timing precision directly affects flow accuracy, particularly at low flow conditions where time-of-flight differences become increasingly small.

In a typical DN15 water meter configuration, the UFC23 delivers a single-shot standard deviation of 35 ps, offset stability of ±7 ps with 128-sample averaging, and drift below 10 ps across a 0°C to 50°C operating range. This measurement stability supports high-end water metering applications, including designs targeting R1000-class performance.

Power consumption has been optimised for long battery life in deployed smart metering infrastructure. The UFC23 operates with a typical standby current of 0.8 µA and operating current as low as 6.6 µA at an 8 Hz sampling rate, addressing a core requirement in battery-powered utility infrastructure.

Signal handling across water and gas metering applications
The UFC23 integrates ultrasonic transducer drive, received signal capture, and time-of-flight extraction within a single device.

It supports 3.3 V single-ended drive for water metering applications and full-bridge drive for gas metering designs. A programmable gain amplifier with increased gain and bandwidth improves handling of weak return signals, which is particularly relevant in systems with signal attenuation or low-amplitude echoes.

The programmable ultrasonic burst generator supports frequencies up to 4.4 MHz using an external reference clock of up to 20 MHz, allowing designers to tune operation based on transducer characteristics and application-specific requirements.

Features aimed at system-level efficiency
Beyond measurement accuracy, the device includes functions intended to reduce total system energy consumption and improve detection reliability.

Designers can monitor amplitudes from up to three received waveforms and use extended pulse-width measurement to improve first-hit detection accuracy. A batch mode allows the UFC23 to collect up to 12 measurement bundles before waking the host microcontroller, reducing processor wake cycles and lowering overall system power demand.

For thermal energy metering and hot-water systems, the converter also supports temperature measurement through external platinum sensors.

Reusable platform across meter families
Because the UFC23 supports multiple application configurations, manufacturers can deploy the same device across different smart metering product families rather than maintaining separate converter platforms.

The device operates from a 2.5 V to 3.6 V supply range, supports ambient operating temperatures from -40°C to 85°C, and is supplied in a QFN32 package.

Edited by Aishwarya Mambet, Induportals Editor, with AI assistance.

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